EUSTIS – A Stratton man barely escaped a dunking in frigid water early Friday morning when the pickup truck he was driving broke through thin ice and sank under a Route 27 bridge over the North Branch of Dead River, Warden Dennis Burnell said Saturday evening.
Kurt Rolbiecki, 39, who was not injured in the 5:45 a.m. incident, climbed out the driver’s-side window of his four-wheel drive, 2001 Dodge extended-cab pickup truck, Burnell said.
“He was lucky he got out; extremely fortunate,” he said.
If the truck had sunk quickly in the 8- to 10-foot-deep water, rather than in lurches, Rolbiecki might not have gotten out, or, if he did, could have suffered from frostbite or hypothermia, the warden said.
Burnell said ice near the bridge was about 12 to 18 inches thick, but where the truck sank under the bridge, it was only 4 to 6 inches thick.
He said Rolbiecki told him he was on his way to work, saw some friends about to go ice fishing from the boat landing, and tried to prove that it was safe to drive on the ice.
Early Friday afternoon, a crane from Nickerson’s in Kingfield was used to retrieve the totaled truck.
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